Artist Mafia

If you are an artist who is looking to make a name for themselves, or at least make a little money, knowing how – and where – best to accomplish that can be perplexing. But we’ve compiled a list of the 10 best cities in which to thrive on your chosen profession.

Here’s How We Ranked Them

We started with a list of the 50 most populous cities in the U.S. and ranked them from one to 50 in each of the following categories:

Cost of Living – The lower the better. If you’re an artist, there’s a pretty good chance you’re not going to have two grand a month to drop on rent. This should help keep you from being a “starving” artist.
People 20-34 years of age – Not that older people aren’t artists, but if you’re looking to move to a new city to start a new career, you are likely in this age bracket. So the more close to your age the better.
People working in the arts industry – Much like knowing how many people are your age, you’d also probably like to know how many people are working in the same field as you. The more there are, the better possibility of meeting someone with the same ambitions as you.
Number of museums and galleries in the city – Culture matters. If the city cares about art, there will be more of these to visit; thus there would be a solid chance you could have a good career there.
Households with income greater than $200,000 – Let’s face it; potential buyers aren’t budgeting to buy art the same way they would a car or a house. If your art is going to be bought, you need more people with deep pockets.
After establishing a ranking for each of those categories, we assigned a score to each city for those categories as well. Once those were added up, we divided the sum into an average; the lower that average was the better.

1. Atlanta, GA
Atlanta

Patrons walk through a gallery at the Atlanta Arts Fair, held in Piedmont Park. Photo courtesy examiner.com.
Where one might expect to see San Francisco or New York City at the top of this list, Atlanta was a little surprising; but when considering it ranked in the top 15 in all five of our categories, it was certainly deserved.

They ranked fourth in number of households making more than 200,000 bucks a year, and despite ranking 15th in cost of living, they still came in below the national average.

2. Seattle, WA
Seattle

Entrance to the Seattle Art Museum. Photo courtesy bybeestone.com.
The city known for tossing fish and angry Seahawks had good reason to come in at number two on our list. Despite ranking 40th in cost of living, it more than made up for that by ranking fifth and fourth in percent of its population that are between the ages of 20-34, and in number of galleries and museums, respectively.

3. San Francisco, CA
640px-Palace_of_Fine_Arts_SF_CA

Palace of Fine Arts. Photo courtesy commons.wikimedia.org.
This one comes as no surprise. Although it ranked next to last in cost of living, it came in first in potential buyers, a.k.a those making over 200 grand a year, and number of museums. Combine that with the natural beauty of the city and the landscape in which it resides, there’s plenty to love about the City by the Bay.

4. Austin, TX
art-city-austin

From Art City Austin. Photo courtesy 365thingsaustin.com.
The music capital of the world also takes great pride into the other side of the arts coin. Home to the South by Southwest Festival, a bustling nightlife, and warm weather year-round, it has the right intangibles to be successful as an artist. And because the University of Texas is home to over 100,000 students, it is not shocking that it ranks third with those between the ages of 20-34 making up 30 percent of its population.

5. Denver, CO
Denver

”The Dancers” located on the lawn of the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Photo courtesy denver.org.
The city at number five on this list certainly has no shortage of artistic inspiration, with its picturesque mountains just a few (uphill) miles away. Its statistics also speak for themselves, as Denver ranked seventh in the percentage of the population working in the arts industry, as well as in the number of galleries and museums to visit.

6. Nashville, TN

The entrance to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Photo courtesy blogs.tennessean.com.
It’s not just known for country music; Nashville has ample opportunity to thrive as an artist. It ranks 18th in cultural activities, and eighth – 11.8 percent – in the amount of its population working in the arts industry. But where it really separates itself is the cost of living, as it ranks sixth; far and away the best of the top ten.

7. Minneapolis, MN

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Photo courtesy travel.usnews.com.
The land of 10,000 lakes is also home to a diverse artistic community. From the Sculpture Garden pictured above, to the Institute of Arts, there’s no shortage of creative works to see. It doesn’t hurt the metropolis also ranks second in the percentage of its population between the ages of 20-34, and 11th in number of galleries and museums.

8. Boston, MA
Boston

Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Photo courtesy triptipsonline.com.
The only thing that held Boston out of the top five was its ranking of 43rd in cost of living. Otherwise, the home of the oldest baseball stadium in the nation holds artistic beauty in an old-fashioned, traditional sense. And it doesn’t hurt that the city is home to about a dozen universities; it ranked number one in the young people category.

9. Portland, OR

Portland Museum of Art. Photo courtesy picture24gallery.blogspot.com.
Home of trail blazers and beautiful forests, especially in the fall, Rip City came in the top 15 in what are probably the three most important categories: those aged 20-34, those working in the arts industry, and quantity of galleries and museums. That makes the perfect combination for someone young looking to relocate to an art rich area.

10. Las Vegas, NV

Sculpture inside the Bellagio Fine Arts Gallery. Photo courtesy thingstodo.viator.com.
The city of blinding lights isn’t all about glitz, glamour and gambling. There are plenty of ways in Vegas to satisfy your craving of the finer things. From the Bellagio Fine Arts Gallery to the plethora of sculptures, gardens and fountains that line Las Vegas Boulevard and its casinos, one would have no trouble getting away from the action for a while. It also took the number one ranking in the amount of its population working in the arts industry by a landslide, with a whopping 27 percent.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

There was one more thing that surprised us in our compiling of this list: all of the cities in the top 10 have a population of less than a million people. Where one might expect to see the Big Apple, Chicago or Los Angeles, they instead found Minneapolis, Nashville and Atlanta. This list showed that the size of the city did not matter, but what did was the amount each one cared about the art culture in different ways.
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